


Eye of the Storm

by KatyaZel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Complicated Relationships, First War with Voldemort, M/M, Mistrust, long talks, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24929575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatyaZel/pseuds/KatyaZel
Summary: It's been months of silence, resentment, and mistrust between Sirius and Remus. Last night, they finally broke down the walls they'd built and apologized to each other. What happens in the harsh light of day? The two have a long conversation, revealing all of the truths they've hidden from each other over the course of the summer, and come to a new understanding
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Eye of the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> This occurs after the events of "It's a Restless Hungry Feeling" but can be read completely independently of that!

When Remus woke, it felt like sinking. Consciousness slammed into him, but he kept his eyes closed as he reached out beside him, praying Sirius would still be there.

Of course he wasn’t. Sirius probably hadn’t slept at all. Remus kept his eyes closed as he thought about last night. Did it mean anything? He felt a knot in his stomach as he pictured Sirius’s tortured eyes.  _ I’m sorry for everything, this whole summer, everything. Whatever I do next. Tonight. Yesterday. I’m sorry for not talking to you. I’m sorry for my mind. _

__ Did late night apologies translate into anything real in the light of morning? It had been months and months of distance and silence and bitter cold between them; was last night an anomaly? Or a signal of change? Remus squeezed his eyes tight. He did  _ not  _ want to leave this bed, where at least he could pretend things were still fine.

He was moved to leave its comfort when he heard the whistling. He wandered out into the kitchen to find Sirius frying eggs, his mood as bright as the yolks in the pan. When Remus entered the kitchen, Sirius whirled around towards him and smiled. “Good morning,” he murmured, approaching Remus and leaning in for a kiss.

Remus allowed it to happen, barely reciprocating himself. He was too much in shock. A scene like this hadn’t played out between them in months. It was as though Sirius had flipped a switch, or stepped back in time. Either way, something decidedly out of the ordinary was happening. Remus found himself unable to say anything as Sirius turned back to the eggs, so he sat silent at the table. It was as though his lungs were being stepped on and his throat was being squeezed.

Sirius, oblivious, whistled on. When the eggs were done, he presented one to Remus on a chipped plate and ate the other right out of the pan. Smiling all the while. Remus barely managed to choke down his egg.  _ What did this all mean? _

__ Finally, he managed to speak. “Sirius… I think we need to talk. Actually talk.”

Sirius immediately grew guarded. “What do you mean?”

Remus paused to collect his thoughts; it took a great deal of effort to speak them, but at last he said, “I don’t know where we stand. Last night…”

“Last night we fixed it all,” Sirius said cautiously. “Right? This thing that’s been broken. We fixed it. You said you love me. I did too.”

“And I do,” Remus said, “But I don’t know where that leaves us. One night of apologies and sex doesn’t just erase...everything.”

“The sex was very good though,” Sirius said with an impish grin.

Remus tried to laugh, but it came out wrong. “Do you understand what I’m saying? Please say yes.”

Sirius stood and began to pace. He was wearing a white t-shirt and grey pyjama pants, and both of them seemed to irritate him as he plucked at his collar and sleeves. His arrhythmic footsteps drove Remus mad, but he knew Sirius couldn’t think sitting still. Sirius said, “You’re saying it’s not enough. Loving each other isn’t enough.” His eyes shot towards Remus. “How could you say that?”

“Because it’s  _ true,  _ isn’t it?” He took a steadying breath and said, quietly, “I don’t want to live like we’ve been living. It hurts too much. If that is how things are, I don’t think I can stand it.”

Sirius pulled on his hair with both hands. “But that’s the bloody point, isn’t it? That’s not how things are, not anymore. It’s okay now.”

“You’re being delusional,” Remus snapped. 

He regretted it as soon as he saw the hurt cross Sirius’s face. It was too harsh an accusation to throw at someone who actually suffered from occasional delusions. Sirius tightened his lips and said, “I want things to be okay, Remus, please, just tell me what I have to do for things to be okay.”

Remus shut his eyes for a moment. “You need to tell me why you’ve been acting this way for so long. Why you act like you don’t trust me. Why you act like I’m not even there.”

“And then will you tell me why you’ve been acting the way  _ you  _ have? Not telling me shit, going off all night, multiple nights, being so damn closed?”

Remus had no reply. He traced the grain of the table with his thumb. He hadn’t thought Sirius had noticed anything, hadn’t thought there was anything to notice. He’d thought Sirius was too far gone to care. Finally, he looked up at Sirius, who was standing stock still, staring down at Remus. “Yes. I’ll tell you the truth if you tell me the truth.”

Something hard shifted in Sirius’s eyes, but he nodded. “Okay.”

***

Since their days at Hogwarts, Sirius and Remus always felt most at ease in very high places. Their first kiss had been at the top of the astronomy tower; their first  _ I love yous  _ had been in an empty quidditch stadium in the last row. This morning, they moved from the kitchen onto the roof, confident no one else would disturb them. There was an old, musty couch on the roof, and they sat on opposite ends of it, as far apart as possible.

Sirius started. “Shit, Moony, what now? Interrogation time?”

Remus’s lips twitched into what was almost a smile. “Sure.” Neither of them wanted to start, but after a moment of silence, Remus dug his fingers into the couch cushion and dove in. He figured he would start with something easy. “Where were you last weekend?”

“Dorcas’s. We patrolled together Friday night and I stayed through Sunday. She’s not doing well, Moony, she’s really not. I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

Remus winced. It had been a few months since Marlene’s death, and being reminded of it still stung. Remus felt guilty for not having spent more time with Dorcas since then, but seeing her perpetual grief broke something within him. “I’m glad you were with her,” he said quietly, “But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just tell me.”

Sirius looked down at his lap. “Inertia? Why would I start telling you things now?”

“Even something as inconsequential as that?”

Sirius cocked his head. “Were you worried about me?”

Remus let out a frustrated breath. “Sirius, I’m always worried about you. I haven’t stopped worrying about you for two years. Or ten years, maybe.”

“I didn’t think…” Sirius trailed off. 

“That’s your problem, isn’t it? You don’t think. You never think your life could possibly matter to someone else.” Remus took a breath to center himself; he was letting his emotions get the best of him.

Sirius smiled wanly. “Is it my turn to ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“Are you cheating on me?”

Remus started. The idea was so foreign, so strange, that he actually laughed. Sirius looked affronted, and finally Remus managed to answer,  _ “No.  _ Are you mad? Jesus. Cheating on you? How could I ever?”

Sirius nodded slowly. “Well, if you were cheating on me, it would be a very neat explanation for everything that’s been going wrong, and I really wish the explanation could be neat. Are you sure?”

“Of  _ course  _ I’m sure. Jesus Christ. When would I have time for an affair? What spare energy do I have that I could maintain one? And do you really think I would do that to you?”

“Well, then, where do you--”

Remus interrupted him. “I’m afraid it’s my turn.” Remus stopped to consider his next question. The one he really wanted to ask seemed too big, too vague-- _ what happened to us?  _ Instead, he thought about seeing Sirius’s naked body last night and the bones that protruded too sharply, like they were trying to escape. “Are you eating?” he asked.

Sirius gave a bark of laughter. “Really? That’s what you want to know?”

“Yes,” Remus said evenly. “You’re too thin.”

Sirius shrugged violently. “Okay, I don’t know, I guess I don’t eat much. Who has time? I never remember, or if I do I’m never hungry. It’s not a problem. Doesn’t it add to my allure?”

“No, actually,  _ malnourished  _ isn’t my type.”

Sirius peered at Remus. “This bothers you. Why does this bother you so much?”

Remus scrubbed his face with his palm. “I don’t want you to starve, Pads. I want you to be healthy. And…” He swallowed. “It hurts that I didn’t see. Didn’t notice. I feel guilty over it.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sirius said quietly. “You aren’t responsible for keeping me whole.”

“Yes, I am,” Remus said heatedly. “We’ve been that way for years. Keeping each other whole.”

“I haven’t been doing a very good job, then, have I?” Sirius said. His eyes were sad as he gazed at Remus. “It’s my turn. When’s the last time you saw your parents.”

Remus took a ragged breath. He shut his eyes; this hurt too much to think about. “Not since July,” he said, his voice clipped. “My turn.”

“No, wait, I need more of an answer than that. Why has it been so long?”

He bit his tongue until he tasted blood. “When Marlene died...When Marlene died, I decided I shouldn’t talk to them anymore. For their own safety.”

“Shit, Moony,” Sirius breathed. “That’s...shit.”

Remus shrugged. “I don’t want anyone tracing them to me. I can’t let anything happen to them. I just can’t.”

Sirius didn’t say anything for a long moment. Remus could hear his breath, and suddenly longed to be closer. The distance between them, small though it was, was for some reason unbearable. Still, he did nothing to close the gap. Finally, Sirius spoke, and his voice had a strange, choked quality to it. “I’m sorry. No one with a family like yours should have to do that.”

Remus smiled weakly. “And yet.”

“And yet. It’s your turn.”

“When you’re gone...for days. And you don’t tell me where you are. What are you doing? And why not tell me?”

That had been the first thing that hurt so much. Sirius would go out for a night and not come back for two days, with neither warning nor explanation. When he returned home he would kick off his boots and throw his coat over a chair and spend three-quarters of an hour in the shower. Steam would pour through the crack under the door as Remus fretted over what to say. Sometimes, Sirius would emerge and ignore Remus entirely; other times, he would speak coldly and with hostility; and increasingly rarely, he would smile and hold Remus and kiss his neck and act as though nothing were wrong.

Sirius’s answer initially left something to be desired. “All sorts of places,” he said. When Remus glared at him, he shrugged and continued, “It’s true, isn’t it, it’s not as though I have one destination at all times. Usually I’ll be off on assignment somewhere, Dumbledore’s orders, often something to do with family of course, but then I’ll crash at James’s, or Dorcas’s, or Peter’s if I’m desperate.”

“Why, though? Why not just come home?”

Sirius tightened his lips into a thin line. “I’d only yell at you if I did. In that mood. After assignments.”

Remus had never much considered the nature of Sirius’s assignments, so preoccupied was he with his own. He wanted to ask more, dig deeper, but Sirius spoke first.

“And it’s my turn. Technically double my turn, because I answered two questions, but I’ll be nice and just ask you one.” He reached out his hand towards Remus’s face, and Remus flinched and curled further into the corner of the couch. Sirius nodded. “Why? That’s my question. Why can’t I touch you anymore?”

Touch had never been easy for Remus. Physicality was hard; having a body that betrayed him as often as the moon changed shape made it difficult to trust that body. But with Sirius, things had always been different. Remus had trusted Sirius since they were fourteen, trusted Sirius where he couldn’t trust himself. Lately, though....

“I don’t know what it means anymore,” he said. “I don’t understand why you touch me, why you kiss me, when you seem so...when you seem like you hate me.”

Sirius looked shocked. “I don’t  _ hate  _ you. What on earth are you talking about?”

Remus smiled bitterly. “I don’t know what your hand on my shoulder means when you use the same hand to ransack my bookshelf. I don’t know what a kiss means when you won’t even talk to me. I don’t understand you anymore, Sirius.”

Sirius thought for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I want it to be simpler. I wish I were simpler.”

“You wouldn’t be Sirius Black if you made any sense.” They shared a small laugh. “It’s my turn again.” Remus didn’t think he wanted to hear the answer to this question, but he had to ask it. “Why did you stop trusting me? This is the big one, Pads. Why did everything change?”

Sirius had been sitting for the whole conversation, a feat for him, and he finally stood and began to pace in front of Remus. He was wringing his hands compulsively, and Remus thought about Lady Macbeth. “It’s ugly, Moony. The truth. It’s ugly and I don’t know what you’re going to do but I won’t blame you for anything.” He stopped in his tracks and peered up at the early morning sun. He spoke quickly as though hoping speed would invite understanding. “I didn’t know what to think for so long, and everything was going wrong, everything’s been going wrong all summer, and you’re always gone, and you stopped telling me anything, and what was I supposed to think? What was I supposed to think? I thought it was you, Remus. The spy. I thought it was you.” He looked at Remus with pure terror in his eyes. “It’s this mind of mine, Moony, I don’t know how to account for it but I was  _ so sure  _ I was right, and Peter said so, too, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m wretched but I just didn’t know…”

Remus was very careful not to let anything he was feeling show on his face. As Sirius spoke, he felt something deep inside him crack, an irreparable fissure. It hurt like a beating. He was mad, furious, even, and betrayed. And some voice inside him whispered  _ of course he thinks it’s you, it’s in your nature, isn’t it?  _

Remus’s thoughts whirled about, and he reached blindly and grabbed the closest one. “Peter?” he asked, keeping his voice steady.

“He told me...it doesn’t matter, of course it doesn’t matter, because it isn’t you, I know it isn’t you. But Peter thought so, too.”

Remus nodded. He felt tears prick his eyes and he was furious at himself for that. He took a moment to breathe deeply. He finally felt equal to the task of speaking. “Why do you think so little of me?”

“I think the world of you, Moony, you know that--”

“I don’t know  _ anything,  _ apparently,” Remus snapped. “I would  _ never  _ betray my friends. You--you think I was involved with Marlene’s death? How  _ could  _ you? How dare you?”

“Please, Remus, you have to understand,” Sirius was pleading now. He sat back down on the couch, still on the opposite end from Remus. “Haven’t you ever thought it about me?”

“Of course I--” Remus paused, realizing that his reflexive answer wasn’t quite true, and he had promised truth today. “Okay. I have. But not seriously.”

“Can I ask you a question now?” Sirius said. “And it’s why I thought...well. Where do you go? You leave for a week at a time, sometimes more, and you never say where you’re going. It’s eaten me up for months and months.”

Remus had known this question would come. As evenly as he could, he replied, staring at his hands in his lap. “Dumbledore’s been sending me on missions. Haven’t you noticed anything peculiar about my little trips?” Sirius stared blankly at him. “You really haven’t noticed? I haven’t transformed with you since April. Dumbledore has me going to the werewolves. Trying to win them over for our side.”

Sirius’s eyes widened. “That’s so dangerous, what on earth are you doing that for? Who does Dumbledore think he is, just--sending you out and about on the moon? Why do you do it?”

“Because if I don’t try, they’ll all go over,” Remus said wearily. He felt no hope about these missions anymore; all but a few were failures. He had wondered, in darker moments, if everything Dumbledore had done for him, even letting him into Hogwarts, had been in order for Dumbledore to have a tame wolf on his side. “It’s really bloody awful, Sirius,” he whispered. He wanted to be held, to be comforted. As he drew a shaky breath, he looked at Sirius and saw pity in his eyes, and Remus decided to say, “I saw him last month. Greyback.”

Sirius inhaled sharply, and in an instant he was next to Remus. He made as though to hold Remus, but paused. “Is this okay?” he said softly, desperately. “Please, let me hold you.”

Remus leaned into Sirius and nodded against the other man’s chest. “I’ve never felt that scared,” he said, his voice quavering as he tried not to sob. “Not ever.”

There was comfort to be found in Sirius’s arms, and Remus relished it even as he tried to warn himself against it.  _ He doesn’t trust you. He thinks you’re a monster.  _ Squeezing his eyes shut, Remus ignored the voice in his head and clutched Sirius’s back. 

“I think this game is over,” Remus muttered after several minutes. “I don’t think we can handle any more truth right now.”

Sirius laughed. “Okay, Moony. Whatever you want. Whatever you want from now on.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

***

Back in their flat, Remus made a pot of tea. It was a ritual he observed to calm any strong emotion, and it usually worked. Today, he tried hard to slow his breathing and still his thoughts as the leaves saturated.

What did it mean, really, that Sirius thought he was the spy? Could they come back from that? He thought it was a fracture in their bond that could never be made whole again, whatever Sirius promised. What did they have if they didn’t have trust? Remus had trusted Sirius more than he had ever trusted anyone in his life. And now…

Sirius interrupted his thoughts from the other room. “Make me a cup, too, will you?”

“Sure,” Remus said absently. He almost laughed at how banal the scene was, despite the tremors inside him. Sirius might have been genuinely oblivious, and he might have been pretending, but either way, he was not meeting the seriousness of the moment.

Maybe that was okay. Maybe Remus could just forget it. It was Saturday; neither of them had anywhere to go all weekend, if they didn’t want to. Maybe they could start rebuilding things. When the tea was ready, Remus brought it in and sat down on the couch. Sirius was in his chair, and the distance between them was good for the moment. Necessary.

“Moony, Moony, what are you thinking?” Sirius’s voice was a thin rope tethering Remus to the present. It brought him back to where he was, brought him back from the edge of his mind.

He wanted so badly for everything to be okay. Perhaps truth was the only way forward. So truthfully he answered, “I’m reeling, still. That you thought I was the spy. I’m just...so hurt.”

Sirius cringed. “I am so sorry, really, I am, it’s this mind of mine--”

“But do you still think it? Tell the truth,” he added, seeing Sirius’s reflexive denial on his face.

Sirius thought for a moment. “It’s not all the way out of my head, Remus, but I have to go on trust, don’t I? I trust you, I trust you, and if I keep repeating it, it’ll be true. Especially now that I know the truth...where you were. What you’ve been doing.”

Remus shut his eyes and leaned his head back. What difference did it really make? He thought about Marlene, dead in the street, and shuddered. “You want to know something funny?” he said, “A long time ago, back when we were in school and we started dating, your brother approached me and he was so solemn. He said, ‘Loving Sirius is hard. You’ll have to forgive him a lot, and he won’t always deserve it.’”

Sirius laughed darkly. It had been almost two years since Regulus died, and Sirius still couldn’t talk about it without breaking down. “You already knew that by then, didn’t you? I’m wretched. You’d already forgiven me loads by then. And I don’t reckon I ever deserved it.”

Sirius always spoke this way, as though he was irredeemable. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy that drove Remus mad. “You don’t deserve my forgiveness, but I can’t make it through this war alone.” He felt weak and pitiful as he said it. “I need you. I need it to be like it was, before. Can we do that?”

_ “Yes,”  _ Sirius breathed. “Please. I just want us to be happy. Don’t we deserve some little happiness in this war? Where we can find it?”

“We have to make promises. No more trips without telling each other where we’re going. No more silence. No more lies. We have to talk about everything. Like we used to.”

“I want that,” Sirius said earnestly. “Really, I do. I’m sorry I ever stopped.”

This was progress, Remus thought, or maybe its opposite. Was he giving up something of himself for the comfort of Sirius’s presence? Or was he doing valuable work? These questions were too hard to answer today, he decided, and he didn’t much care to find the answer. What mattered was this: Sirius was sipping tea in the same room as him. They were talking. Silence didn’t hurt today. This was the eye of the storm, a blessed reprieve, and Remus wouldn’t question it as long as it lasted.


End file.
